


Feelings of Failure

by Zeborah



Category: Criminal Minds
Genre: Divorce, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, the dangers of profiling a colleague
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-01
Updated: 2015-08-01
Packaged: 2018-04-12 09:49:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4474763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zeborah/pseuds/Zeborah
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two things that comfort Erin Strauss after Aaron Hotchner profiles her, and one that doesn't.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Erin works in one of the nation's most macho institutions, so she's taken her share of sexist BS. And she's read the files about Aaron Hotchner's meteoric rise (a year prosecuting high profile cases; a year working homicides in Seattle; then in the BAU biding his time until Gideon's downfall let him take charge, double the size of the unit, and get them a _jet_ ) and she's heard the war stories from people who've accidentally stepped in his path (too many to enumerate).

But somehow she always thought that if he was going to take umbrage at a reprimand, he'd strike back from a safe distance. Pull one of the many strings he's been gathering in his travels around the country and wrapping around his little finger. Not lash out on the spot with the same old tripe in prettier language.

"The modern furniture, the strategically placed magazines, the framed diplomas, the art on the wall are all in conflict with your family photos." Just another way of saying _There's no room in the FBI for work_ and _family._

"The bonsai you obsessively nurture" _Women are just too nurturing for this job_ "is to compensation for feelings of failure as a mother." _Who looks after your children? It must be hard on your family. Did you ever think about going to part-time?_

You'd think it would get easier to deal with, hearing these things so often. But somehow every time it hurts a little worse.

The only thing she can hold onto, after she suspends him and still the words play over and over and over in her head, is the other thing he said. "You have three children, but you favour the middle one — your son. Of course you love all your children, but not like your son."

It's the thing that hurts worst of all, because he's right about one thing: she doesn't love all her children the same. The older Jordan gets, the more he reminds her of his father and the pain and bitterness and rage (and guilt and shame and pain) of the divorce.

His photo is in front of Breanne and Emma's not because she loves him more, but because she keeps picking it up, trying to... desensitise herself to it. Trying to make herself see _him_ , Jordan, her little boy who _needs_ her to love him. What kind of a mother—?

Goddamn Hotchner for making a work dispute personal.

But if he was wrong about her son, maybe he's not as good at his job as he thinks he is. Maybe he's wrong about the rest too.


	2. Chapter 2

Erin doesn't suspend her agents lightly. At least if you fire someone you can hire a replacement. She doesn't try to get her agents fired lightly either, but Hotchner's been colouring well outside the lines (turning a blind eye to Garcia hacking into systems before the warrant arrives; covering for Greenaway's murder of a suspect; letting first Morgan escape police custody then Gideon evade capture; and she _knows_ something's going on with Reid) and she can't let it pass any more. So if she could have got proof from Prentiss, she'd have fired him, and since she can't, she'll do whatever else she can to limit the damage.

But when you suspend an agent — all the more a unit chief — everything goes into a holding pattern: new cases, cases in progress, cases that just need the paperwork filed before they can be closed.

All the more when Gideon too is taking leave. All the more when the rest of the BAU is stonewalling her with every excuse on the book why they can't finish their reports without some information that can't possibly be obtained without Hotchner's intervention.

She understands intra-team loyalty. She just can't condone him breaking the law for them: no, not even when they've been innocent. It's _dangerous_ for an agent in charge to be so convinced he's got the inside scoop on justice that he'll disregard due process to achieve it. Unchecked, it inevitably leads to worse — from him, and from the team who looks to him for guidance, and from everyone who watches thinking that this is the behaviour of a hero.

So on Friday night, when she should be heading off early to pick her children up for the weekend, she has to beg a few hours from her ex so she can stay late, wrestling with the reports the Director needs yesterday.

 _The bonsai you obsessively nurture,_ mocks her when she sees it from the corner of her eye, _to compensate for feelings of failure as a mother._

Screw this, she decides, and heads for Hotchner's office: she needs this information.

She's surprised to see what remains of the BAU still working at their own desks. In retrospect she shouldn't be. Just because they're not forwarding her any reports of substance doesn't mean they're not doing any work. For all of Hotchner's bad example in some (key) respects, they're good, devoted, agents.

Their eyes follow her with trepidation into Hotchner's office. What do they expect her to find? He'd never be stupid enough to leave anything incriminating sitting around. So it's just an office. Only Hotchner would turn that into a profile that still has her lying awake at night in bitterness and doubt.

 _The modern furniture, the strategically placed magazines—_ Like his bookcases full of legal texts are any different?

Which makes her stop and take fresh stock of the room. The old-fashioned pen-holder, the strategically placed legal texts — _the framed diplomas, the art on the wall_ — the sharpshooter trophies, the otherwise unadorned concrete walls — _are all in conflict with your family photos_ and she doesn't need to change a word. Wife and son. _Erin's_ not going to try and guess which one he loves more.

And from his desk he sees clear out over the bullpen. _The team you obsessively protect,_ she tells him, with great satisfaction, in her head, _is to compensate for feelings of failure as a father._ Prentiss is head down, back up. Reid and Jareau are murmuring anxiously to each other, and Morgan is resolutely coming up the stairs.

She turns to the doorway. "Good evening, Agent Morgan."

"Chief Strauss," he says with rigid politeness. "Can we help you find something?"

"I need to collate the unit's statistics for the quarterly report."

"Fine. I'll bring them up myself."

"I need them tonight, Agent Morgan."

He looks over his shoulder — she guesses at Reid — and turning back tells her, "You'll have them in an hour, ma'am."

He just wants to get her out of his boss's office, but it's the first concession she's had from any of them since they began their little strike. She presses her advantage: "And the other reports I've been asking about?"

"Agent Jareau will follow up with the locals again and I'll get them to you by the end of Monday." He holds her gaze and speaks with authoritative calm. He's confident answering for his team, and they trust him to do it. He'd be a good leader, she thinks, without Hotchner and Gideon standing in his way. "Was there anything else, ma'am?"

"No," she says, and takes one last look at the legal texts and trophies to give herself something to hold onto when the doubts creep in at 2am. Hotchner wasn't profiling her: he was _projecting_. "Thank you, Agent Morgan, that's all I need."


	3. Chapter 3

Hotchner's always been efficient with his reports, taking them home at night to finish them off and bringing them in to her when he arrives in the morning. But after his reinstatement (and the sitdown she had with him to make it very clear she will _not_ tolerate any more shenanigans under his watch: this time there were no outbursts of profiling from him, and in fact for most of what she had to say he sat subdued with his eyes fixed on the edge of her desk) Erin starts finding the reports in her in-tray when she arrives early to get a jump on the day.

She doesn't let her guard down as the months pass. She scrutinises every one of those reports in case Hotchner, rather than mend his ways, has only got a lot better at hiding them.

Then he hands in his report on the BAU's investigation into the man who shot their technical analyst Garcia.

And yes, Internal Affairs ordered them to stop investigating. No, the police inviting them back in doesn't count. Yes, reading between the lines, Hotchner almost certainly arranged for Garcia to have access to her system while she was suspended and under investigation. No, he (very vocally) neither regrets nor makes any apology for any of his actions.

(Although he does fall silent when she points out that had he kept IA apprised of developments, they might have thought twice before unwittingly escorting the perpetrator, fully armed, into the heart of FBI headquarters.)

But, as Internal Affairs themselves are quick to point out, he does deserve credit for his initial cooperation with them. And his report is, in parts, even more informative than theirs. It's, in his own way, downright honest. Not that he anywhere admits misconduct so as a charge would stick, but anyone reading the report will know exactly what he did and why.

She's never going to be able to stop him from breaking the rules for his team, she realises, and maybe never be able to prove it when he does — but at least she'll know it. That's... something.

So Erin eases up a little. Hotchner's hackles go down a little. They even find themselves agreeing with each other on rare occasions, like when an ex-mobster kills a teen UnSub in cold blood and gets spirited straight back into WitSec; or when...

Well, so far that's about it. But still. Progress.

One night just before six he drops in with his quarterly budgets and adds, "I'll finish the report on our custodial before I go home."

"Thank you," she says, thinking it's ridiculous for him to stay late over a custodial when he's got a wife and child to be home with, "but—"

This is where she notices that the hand she's accepting the budgets from is no longer wearing a wedding ring.

Which... explains the late night. It explains all the late nights, right back to the day he came back from his two week suspension.

And the memory hits her of when Michael packed her bags and booked her a hotel room and she demanded stridently, blubberingly begged to know _why_. She'd been trying so hard. She'd been sober for two weeks — so she'd slipped up, was that so unforgiveable? It was just once. She hadn't even got that drunk: she'd been a hell of a lot drunker before without him ever threatening to kick her out. So why _now_?

_A frog'll put up with a lot of boiling if you heat it up slowly,_ he said. _But give it a break and there's no way in hell it's going to jump back into that pot. Erin, these two weeks have been the happiest I've been in years, and if it'd lasted— But it's never just once._

And so Erin knows. Hotchner's wife was more and more miserable with every trip he took to chase UnSubs. When he was suspended, when he was looking at a transfer, her hopes soared. And when he came back to the BAU, every last one of those hopes was dashed.

All this flashes in an instant through Erin's mind. Her hand with the budgets is frozen mid-air. Hotchner's hand without the ring stills, then lowers joltingly back to his side. When she looks up at his face again, his expression is closed and hard as granite.

_I'm sorry,_ she wants to say, but no more dares than she would try to scale a sheer and perilous cliff. Instead she clears her throat and repeats, "Thank you, Agent Hotchner."

Hotchner nods curtly and without a word leaves her office, back ramrod straight.

And Erin dumps the budgets and drops her head into her hands. She doesn't want to remember the shock, the rage, the shame, the despair, the hate, the guilt, and all the other uglinesses of separation and divorce. She doesn't want to think about the pain she inflicted on Michael and their children that forced him to it. And she doesn't want to admit that when she tells herself of Hotchner, _he was suspended; he came back_ , she really means, _Erin suspended him; Erin let him return_. 

If she was a profiler maybe she would have realised that his outburst in her office all those months ago wasn't fear for his job or even his team. It was terror that he was tearing his marriage apart and he didn't know how to stop. And if she'd realised, she could have...

She doesn't even know. Warned him, maybe: the frog never jumps back in the pot.

_God_ , she needs a drink.


End file.
